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Even during the best of times, starting a small business is tough. During the Covid-19 pandemic, it became a quest for survival. While roughly one-third of small businesses were closed amid the lockdowns, many have reopened their doors or launched anew as consumer demand roars back.
Each of the 31.7 million small businesses in the U.S. has its own unique flavor, challenges and path to success. Some never expand beyond a single founder; others could scale to become the next unicorn. Along the way, many founders will face common sets of challenges as they reach new levels of success.
For that reason, we’ve decided to bring you some real-life examples that illustrate the five stages of small business growth: existence, survival, success, take-off and resource maturity.
We didn’t invent this model—it was developed by researchers Neil C. Churchill and Virginia L. Lewis in 1983. Our goal is to bring each stage to life and start a conversation around the opportunities and experiences that business leaders encounter.
Every day this week, we’ll bring you insights from our contributors on each stage of growth. Today, we start at the beginning: the initial stage of launching a business and figuring out everything from product fit to customer acquisition.
Stage 1: Existence
Idea validation and commercialization of research
Stage 2: Survival
Customer service and building customer loyalty
Profitability and growth
Stage 3: Success
The founders dilemma
Incentivizing word of mouth
Securing funding for expansion
Stage 4: Take-off
Scaling operations
Hiring and growth
Resilience, business continuity and contingency planning
Stage 5: Resource Maturity
Maintaining customer service while scaling
Lean marketing for businesses
Unicorn entrepreneurs and financing
I am Senior Editor at Forbes covering everything from Wall Street and billionaires to the intrepid world of entrepreneurs, startups and small business. A former Forbes “U
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I am Senior Editor at Forbes covering everything from Wall Street and billionaires to the intrepid world of entrepreneurs, startups and small business. A former Forbes “Under 30” lister myself, I am author of The Alpha Masters and host of Spotify’s “Megatrends” podcast. Before joining Forbes, I was a Knight-Bagehot fellow at Columbia Journalism School and had over a decade-long tenure at CNBC, most recently as Senior Editor and co-founder of Delivering Alpha, the network’s flagship annual Wall Street summit. Formerly, as CNBC’s hedge fund specialist, I broke news on various activist campaigns like Herbalife and covered investigations such as Lehman Brothers’ insolvency during the financial crisis.
I got my start in journalism as a part of The Wall Street Journal’s Money & Investing team and began my career at Citigroup at the age of seventeen—which is where I earned the nickname “Wall Street Maneet”. Send tips to: mahuja@forbes.com
stock market investing and crypto investing. Come for business consultations with us. Our phone number is 804-349-6199
All business plans created are tailored to the client's strengths and weaknesses after a full market research is done for the business and locations that it is profitable for you. please feel free to contact me. 804-349-6199
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